HAPPY BIRTHDAY MENIL!

The Menil Collection, considered by many to be overall the best museum in Texas, is 20 years old this month!! Even as we celebrate this milestone and all the people (many of whom are gone) who've helped the instution get here, we look forward with interest to what the next 20 years will bring: will the Menil try to develop its collection? What types of exhibitions should they be doing? How best to keep the museum relevant and at the top of its game? In the near term, how will the team of director Josef Helfenstein and curator Franklin Sirmans affect the place? Helfenstein is a well-liked and respected academic with little seeming taste for the thrust and parry of directorial politics; Sirmans is known for the terrific group shows he curated in the last eight years, as well as the Basquiat show at MFAH last year. It'll be interesting to see what they cook up. The Menil is 20; long live the Menil!

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4 days agoby glasstire#Repost@morgangrasham ・・・ Check out this article by @glasstire critiquing Clay + Things at @site131 (open until December 14). "The standouts of the show are the collaborative works of Eric and Morgan Grasham. Eric’s ceramic vessels are freestanding objects that are inserted into Morgan’s taxidermied animal hides. The vessels and daggers are functionally removable, though they discourage viewer handling with their grandiose flourishes and mason-stained brilliance. Morgan’s taxidermy is expressive in ways that showcase the majesty of form, and they’re terrifying objects of grace and power. The artists are experts in the language of their respective mediums, and are clear